{"id":357,"date":"2002-04-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2002-04-25T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/?p=357"},"modified":"2012-03-07T22:36:07","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T03:36:07","slug":"s_logs-dashew-dashew169","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/s_logs-dashew-dashew169\/","title":{"rendered":"Gateway PC Update"},"content":{"rendered":"
An update on the new Gateway PC. (updated May 3, 2002)<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Back in mid-March we wrote a report on how much we like our new Gateway portable computer. Well, we still like the parts of it which work…However, we’ve come to the conclusion that we would never do business with them again because of the way they handle hardware problems.<\/p>\n

Turns out we’ve got a bad parallel port (learned this after several hours on the phone). They say we have to return the computer to them to have it fixed. OK, I can understand that. But when I ask about turnaround time I get an iffy response: “Maybe one to two weeks”. <\/p>\n

Of course we’re right in the middle of several projects using this computer, we are leaving in less than three weeks for the boat, and this won’t do at all. When I explained the situation, the nice young man in tech support said there was nothing he could do. I asked to speak to a supervisor to explain my situation and got the run-around. After asking who I could talk to, he suggested customer support and gave me the number. This turned out to be sales, who don’ t want to know about anything but my credit card number.<\/p>\n

I then went to their website and finally found a phone number for press contacts, and being a member of the press, so to speak, I figured they might be able to help. No answer there, but they had a recording which said they would return the call in half an hour. 24 hours later we have not heard back.<\/p>\n

Next time we’ll find a company which understands what the word “service”means. <\/p>\n

May 3, 2002 This article elicited a response from one of our readers, which we’ve posted here:<\/h3>\n

I read your two articles about Gateway laptops; one about buying your third from Gateway (remanufactured) and the latest about poopy customer service. <\/p>\n

Your experience mirrors mine precisely. I have had three from them as well. I kept going back because, 1) I never had a real problem with the first two (that I didn’t create myself), and 2) because when I had to contact Gateway they were terrific. <\/p>\n

Well, it isn’t the way it used to be. <\/p>\n

The 9500 I now have has been back three times with failed hardware (same story as yours, “…it’ll be ready when it’s ready.”) and the people on the phone aren’t too whippy. Paraphrasing a politcal observation about Washington, “They wouldn’t be in customer service if they didn’t know what they were doing. And they’re not there.” <\/p>\n

I have no idea who’s a better bet. I wish I still had my Gateway 2500 – slow, but it always worked. <\/p>\n

Dan Nathan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An update on the new Gateway PC. (updated May 3, 2002)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beowulf-logs","category-dashew-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}